Automated Mitigation of Electronic Message Based Security Threats

ABSTRACT

An example embodiment may include a security enforcement point device disposed within a managed network and a security decision point device disposed within a computational instance of a remote network management platform. The security decision point device may be configured to: receive a message by way of the managed network; parse the message to identify observable indicators of one or more of the security threats, where the observable indicators include at least one of a network addresses, a hyperlink, or a representation of an attached file; remotely query a security threat database for the observable indicators; receive, from the security threat database, an indication that the observable indicators are associated with a particular security threat, and transmit, to the security enforcement point device, a command to update its associated security policy such that the particular security threat is mitigated.

BACKGROUND

Email phishing attacks have become one of the most prevalent vectors forthe illicit acquisition of sensitive private information as well as theintroduction of malware into computing devices. Successfully detectingphishing attacks can be challenging, especially since the line betweenemail spam and phishing can be quite thin. With new phishing threatsemerging and evolving on a regular basis, it is difficult to educateusers of email services to respond properly when they believe that theymay have received an email containing a phishing attack. Therefore,taking measures to automate the detection and containment of thesethreats can be beneficial.

SUMMARY

Phishing attacks typically take the form of email messages sent to alarge number of users. Such an email message may contain text or imagesthat seek to have the users take a specific action. This action may bereferencing a hyperlink, such as a uniform resource locator (URL). Thehyperlink may lead to a counterfeit web site that mimics the appearanceof an actual web site and encourages the users to enter sensitiveprivate information (e.g., userids and passwords). Alternatively oradditionally, the action may be for the user to download an attachmentcontained within or associated with the email message. The attachmentmay include an executable file that, when activated, installs malware onthe user's computing device.

Regardless of the exact methods used, the impact of phishing attacks canbe devastating to individuals and enterprises. In addition to potentialfinancial loss, hundreds or thousands of person hours may be spentdetermining the extent of a phishing attack, identifying compromiseddevices, and containing and eradicating the threat. Thus, any techniquethat can be used to improve the detection of and responses to phishingattacks can be beneficial.

Particularly, in enterprises and other organizations, users may beencouraged to report suspected phishing attacks to securityprofessionals. For instance, a user may suspect that an email messagethat he or she received is a phishing attack. The user may forward theemail message to a pre-established mailbox. The security professionalsmay review email messages in this mailbox to determine whether thesuspected phishing attack is an actual threat. If this is the case, thesecurity professional may assess the extent of the attack. This mayinvolve establishing how many other users received the same or a similarphishing attack, whether any of these users took any of the actionsassociated with the phishing attack, assessing the impact of theseactions, and updating security policies on security enforcement points(e.g., firewalls, email servers, intrusion detection systems, intrusionprevention systems, and/or anti-malware applications operating onendpoint devices) to mitigate or eradicate the effect of the phishingattack.

This process can take hours or days, even for a seasoned securityprofessional. During such a time period, the attack can spreadunchecked, interrupting the proper function of tens, hundreds, orthousands of devices. Clearly, any technical solution that reduces thetimeframe of detection, containment, and eradication of these threats iswelcome, and perhaps necessary to protect against previously unseenattacks.

The embodiments herein provide technical improvements to how phishingattacks are detected, assessed, and mitigated in a managed network. Whena possible phishing attack is detected (e.g., reported by a user orautomatically detected), a copy of the suspect email message istransmitted to an email account or another destination. Once received,the suspect email message is scanned for observable indicators ofphishing. These may include certain patterns or inconsistencies in thesuspect email's headers, links to particular URLs in the suspect emailmessage's body, and/or certain attachments contained in the suspectemail message. If it is determined that the observable indicators areassociated with phishing attacks, updated security policies may beprovided to one or more security enforcement points within the managednetwork so that future email messages with the same or similarobservable indicators do not reach users' email inboxes. If it isdetermined that the observable indicators are not associated withphishing attacks, an updated policy may be provided to an email spamfilter on the managed network. This way, future spam emails are lesslikely to be delivered to users' email inboxes. Thus, these embodimentsalso reduce “noise” for security personnel and help focus theirresources on real and imminent threats.

Accordingly, a first example embodiment may involve a securityenforcement point device disposed within a managed network, where thesecurity enforcement point device applies security policies to protectcomputing devices on the managed network from security threats. Thefirst example embodiment may also involve a security decision pointdevice disposed within a computational instance of a remote networkmanagement platform, where the computational instance is dedicated toserving the managed network. The security decision point device may alsobe configured to: receive a message by way of the managed network, wherethe message was obtained by a particular computing device of thecomputing devices; parse the message to identify observable indicatorsof one or more of the security threats, where the observable indicatorsinclude at least one of a network addresses, a hyperlink, or arepresentation of an attached file; remotely query a security threatdatabase for the observable indicators; receive, from the securitythreat database, an indication that the observable indicators areassociated with a particular security threat; and transmit, to thesecurity enforcement point device, a command to update its associatedsecurity policy such that the particular security threat is mitigated,where reception of the command causes the security enforcement pointdevice to change operation to be in accordance with the updated securitypolicy.

A second example embodiment may involve receiving, at a securitydecision point device disposed within a computational instance of aremote network management platform, a message by way of a managednetwork, where the message was obtained by a particular computing devicedisposed within the managed network, and where the computationalinstance is dedicated to serving the managed network. The second exampleembodiment may also involve parsing, by the security decision pointdevice, the message to identify observable indicators of one or more ofthe security threats, where the observable indicators include at leastone of a network addresses, a hyperlink, or a representation of anattached file. The second example embodiment may also involve remotelyquerying, by the security decision point device, a security threatdatabase for the observable indicators. The second example embodimentmay also involve receiving, by the security decision point device andfrom the security threat database, an indication that the observableindicators are associated with a particular security threat. The secondexample embodiment may also involve transmitting, by the securitydecision point device and to a security enforcement point devicedisposed within the managed network, a command to update a securitypolicy of the security enforcement point device such that the particularsecurity threat is mitigated, where reception of the command causes thesecurity enforcement point device to change operation to be inaccordance with the updated security policy.

In a third example embodiment, an article of manufacture may include anon-transitory computer-readable medium, having stored thereon programinstructions that, upon execution by a computing system, cause thecomputing system to perform operations in accordance with the firstand/or second example embodiment.

In a fourth example embodiment, a computing system may include at leastone processor, as well as memory and program instructions. The programinstructions may be stored in the memory, and upon execution by the atleast one processor, cause the computing system to perform operations inaccordance with the first and/or second example embodiment.

In a fifth example embodiment, a system may include various means forcarrying out each of the operations of the first and/or second exampleembodiment.

These as well as other embodiments, aspects, advantages, andalternatives will become apparent to those of ordinary skill in the artby reading the following detailed description, with reference whereappropriate to the accompanying drawings. Further, this summary andother descriptions and figures provided herein are intended toillustrate embodiments by way of example only and, as such, thatnumerous variations are possible. For instance, structural elements andprocess steps can be rearranged, combined, distributed, eliminated, orotherwise changed, while remaining within the scope of the embodimentsas claimed.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 illustrates a schematic drawing of a computing device, inaccordance with example embodiments.

FIG. 2 illustrates a schematic drawing of a server device cluster, inaccordance with example embodiments.

FIG. 3 depicts a remote network management architecture, in accordancewith example embodiments.

FIG. 4 depicts a communication environment involving a remote networkmanagement architecture, in accordance with example embodiments.

FIG. 5A depicts another communication environment involving a remotenetwork management architecture, in accordance with example embodiments.

FIG. 5B is a flow chart, in accordance with example embodiments.

FIG. 6A is an example electronic message and headers, in accordance withexample embodiments.

FIG. 6B is another example electronic message and headers, in accordancewith example embodiments.

FIG. 7A is network architecture for security threat detection andmitigation, in accordance with example embodiments.

FIG. 7B is a message flow diagram, in accordance with exampleembodiments.

FIG. 8 is a flow chart, in accordance with example embodiments.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

Example methods, devices, and systems are described herein. It should beunderstood that the words “example” and “exemplary” are used herein tomean “serving as an example, instance, or illustration.” Any embodimentor feature described herein as being an “example” or “exemplary” is notnecessarily to be construed as preferred or advantageous over otherembodiments or features unless stated as such. Thus, other embodimentscan be utilized and other changes can be made without departing from thescope of the subject matter presented herein.

Accordingly, the example embodiments described herein are not meant tobe limiting. It will be readily understood that the aspects of thepresent disclosure, as generally described herein, and illustrated inthe figures, can be arranged, substituted, combined, separated, anddesigned in a wide variety of different configurations. For example, theseparation of features into “client” and “server” components may occurin a number of ways.

Further, unless context suggests otherwise, the features illustrated ineach of the figures may be used in combination with one another. Thus,the figures should be generally viewed as component aspects of one ormore overall embodiments, with the understanding that not allillustrated features are necessary for each embodiment.

Additionally, any enumeration of elements, blocks, or steps in thisspecification or the claims is for purposes of clarity. Thus, suchenumeration should not be interpreted to require or imply that theseelements, blocks, or steps adhere to a particular arrangement or arecarried out in a particular order.

I. INTRODUCTION

A large enterprise is a complex entity with many interrelatedoperations. Some of these are found across the enterprise, such as humanresources (HR), supply chain, information technology (IT), and finance.However, each enterprise also has its own unique operations that provideessential capabilities and/or create competitive advantages.

To support widely-implemented operations, enterprises typically useoff-the-shelf software applications, such as customer relationshipmanagement (CRM) and human capital management (HCM) packages. However,they may also need custom software applications to meet their own uniquerequirements. A large enterprise often has dozens or hundreds of thesecustom software applications. Nonetheless, the advantages provided bythe embodiments herein are not limited to large enterprises and may beapplicable to an enterprise, or any other type of organization, of anysize.

Many such software applications are developed by individual departmentswithin the enterprise. These range from simple spreadsheets tocustom-built software tools and databases. But the proliferation ofsiloed custom software applications has numerous disadvantages. Itnegatively impacts an enterprise's ability to run and grow its business,innovate, and meet regulatory requirements. The enterprise may find itdifficult to integrate, streamline and enhance its operations due tolack of a single system that unifies its subsystems and data.

To efficiently create custom applications, enterprises would benefitfrom a remotely-hosted application platform that eliminates unnecessarydevelopment complexity. The goal of such a platform would be to reducetime-consuming, repetitive application development tasks so thatsoftware engineers and individuals in other roles can focus ondeveloping unique, high-value features.

In order to achieve this goal, the concept of Application Platform as aService (aPaaS) is introduced, to intelligently automate workflowsthroughout the enterprise. An aPaaS system is hosted remotely from theenterprise, but may access data, applications, and services within theenterprise by way of secure connections. Such an aPaaS system may have anumber of advantageous capabilities and characteristics. Theseadvantages and characteristics may be able to improve the enterprise'soperations and workflow for IT, HR, CRM, customer service, applicationdevelopment, and security.

The aPaaS system may support development and execution ofmodel-view-controller (MVC) applications. MVC applications divide theirfunctionality into three interconnected parts (model, view, andcontroller) in order to isolate representations of information from themanner in which the information is presented to the user, therebyallowing for efficient code reuse and parallel development. Theseapplications may be web-based, and offer create, read, update, delete(CRUD) capabilities. This allows new applications to be built on acommon application infrastructure.

The aPaaS system may support standardized application components, suchas a standardized set of widgets for graphical user interface (GUI)development. In this way, applications built using the aPaaS system havea common look and feel. Other software components and modules may bestandardized as well. In some cases, this look and feel can be brandedor skinned with an enterprise's custom logos and/or color schemes.

The aPaaS system may support the ability to configure the behavior ofapplications using metadata. This allows application behaviors to berapidly adapted to meet specific needs. Such an approach reducesdevelopment time and increases flexibility. Further, the aPaaS systemmay support GUI tools that facilitate metadata creation and management,thus reducing errors in the metadata.

The aPaaS system may support clearly-defined interfaces betweenapplications, so that software developers can avoid unwantedinter-application dependencies. Thus, the aPaaS system may implement aservice layer in which persistent state information and other data isstored.

The aPaaS system may support a rich set of integration features so thatthe applications thereon can interact with legacy applications andthird-party applications. For instance, the aPaaS system may support acustom employee-onboarding system that integrates with legacy HR, IT,and accounting systems.

The aPaaS system may support enterprise-grade security. Furthermore,since the aPaaS system may be remotely hosted, it should also utilizesecurity procedures when it interacts with systems in the enterprise orthird-party networks and services hosted outside of the enterprise. Forexample, the aPaaS system may be configured to share data amongst theenterprise and other parties to detect and identify common securitythreats.

Other features, functionality, and advantages of an aPaaS system mayexist. This description is for purpose of example and is not intended tobe limiting.

As an example of the aPaaS development process, a software developer maybe tasked to create a new application using the aPaaS system. First, thedeveloper may define the data model, which specifies the types of datathat the application uses and the relationships therebetween. Then, viaa GUI of the aPaaS system, the developer enters (e.g., uploads) the datamodel. The aPaaS system automatically creates all of the correspondingdatabase tables, fields, and relationships, which can then be accessedvia an object-oriented services layer.

In addition, the aPaaS system can also build a fully-functional MVCapplication with client-side interfaces and server-side CRUD logic. Thisgenerated application may serve as the basis of further development forthe user. Advantageously, the developer does not have to spend a largeamount of time on basic application functionality. Further, since theapplication may be web-based, it can be accessed from anyInternet-enabled client device. Alternatively or additionally, a localcopy of the application may be able to be accessed, for instance, whenInternet service is not available.

The aPaaS system may also support a rich set of pre-definedfunctionality that can be added to applications. These features includesupport for searching, email, templating, workflow design, reporting,analytics, social media, scripting, mobile-friendly output, andcustomized GUIs.

The following embodiments describe architectural and functional aspectsof example aPaaS systems, as well as the features and advantagesthereof.

II. EXAMPLE COMPUTING DEVICES AND CLOUD-BASED COMPUTING ENVIRONMENTS

FIG. 1 is a simplified block diagram exemplifying a computing device100, illustrating some of the components that could be included in acomputing device arranged to operate in accordance with the embodimentsherein. Computing device 100 could be a client device (e.g., a deviceactively operated by a user), a server device (e.g., a device thatprovides computational services to client devices), or some other typeof computational platform. Some server devices may operate as clientdevices from time to time in order to perform particular operations, andsome client devices may incorporate server features.

In this example, computing device 100 includes processor 102, memory104, network interface 106, and an input/output unit 108, all of whichmay be coupled by a system bus 110 or a similar mechanism. In someembodiments, computing device 100 may include other components and/orperipheral devices (e.g., detachable storage, printers, and so on).

Processor 102 may be one or more of any type of computer processingelement, such as a central processing unit (CPU), a co-processor (e.g.,a mathematics, graphics, or encryption co-processor), a digital signalprocessor (DSP), a network processor, and/or a form of integratedcircuit or controller that performs processor operations. In some cases,processor 102 may be one or more single-core processors. In other cases,processor 102 may be one or more multi-core processors with multipleindependent processing units. Processor 102 may also include registermemory for temporarily storing instructions being executed and relateddata, as well as cache memory for temporarily storing recently-usedinstructions and data.

Memory 104 may be any form of computer-usable memory, including but notlimited to random access memory (RAM), read-only memory (ROM), andnon-volatile memory (e.g., flash memory, hard disk drives, solid statedrives, compact discs (CDs), digital video discs (DVDs), and/or tapestorage). Thus, memory 104 represents both main memory units, as well aslong-term storage. Other types of memory may include biological memory.

Memory 104 may store program instructions and/or data on which programinstructions may operate. By way of example, memory 104 may store theseprogram instructions on a non-transitory, computer-readable medium, suchthat the instructions are executable by processor 102 to carry out anyof the methods, processes, or operations disclosed in this specificationor the accompanying drawings.

As shown in FIG. 1, memory 104 may include firmware 104A, kernel 104B,and/or applications 104C. Firmware 104A may be program code used to bootor otherwise initiate some or all of computing device 100. Kernel 104Bmay be an operating system, including modules for memory management,scheduling and management of processes, input/output, and communication.Kernel 104B may also include device drivers that allow the operatingsystem to communicate with the hardware modules (e.g., memory units,networking interfaces, ports, and busses), of computing device 100.Applications 104C may be one or more user-space software programs, suchas web browsers or email clients, as well as any software libraries usedby these programs. Memory 104 may also store data used by these andother programs and applications.

Network interface 106 may take the form of one or more wirelineinterfaces, such as Ethernet (e.g., Fast Ethernet, Gigabit Ethernet, andso on). Network interface 106 may also support communication over one ormore non-Ethernet media, such as coaxial cables or power lines, or overwide-area media, such as Synchronous Optical Networking (SONET) ordigital subscriber line (DSL) technologies. Network interface 106 mayadditionally take the form of one or more wireless interfaces, such asIEEE 802.11 (Wifi), BLUETOOTH®, global positioning system (GPS), or awide-area wireless interface. However, other forms of physical layerinterfaces and other types of standard or proprietary communicationprotocols may be used over network interface 106. Furthermore, networkinterface 106 may comprise multiple physical interfaces. For instance,some embodiments of computing device 100 may include Ethernet,BLUETOOTH®, and Wifi interfaces.

Input/output unit 108 may facilitate user and peripheral deviceinteraction with example computing device 100. Input/output unit 108 mayinclude one or more types of input devices, such as a keyboard, a mouse,a touch screen, and so on. Similarly, input/output unit 108 may includeone or more types of output devices, such as a screen, monitor, printer,and/or one or more light emitting diodes (LEDs). Additionally oralternatively, computing device 100 may communicate with other devicesusing a universal serial bus (USB) or high-definition multimediainterface (HDMI) port interface, for example.

In some embodiments, one or more instances of computing device 100 maybe deployed to support an aPaaS architecture. The exact physicallocation, connectivity, and configuration of these computing devices maybe unknown and/or unimportant to client devices. Accordingly, thecomputing devices may be referred to as “cloud-based” devices that maybe housed at various remote data center locations.

FIG. 2 depicts a cloud-based server cluster 200 in accordance withexample embodiments. In FIG. 2, operations of a computing device (e.g.,computing device 100) may be distributed between server devices 202,data storage 204, and routers 206, all of which may be connected bylocal cluster network 208. The number of server devices 202, datastorages 204, and routers 206 in server cluster 200 may depend on thecomputing task(s) and/or applications assigned to server cluster 200.

For example, server devices 202 can be configured to perform variouscomputing tasks of computing device 100. Thus, computing tasks can bedistributed among one or more of server devices 202. To the extent thatthese computing tasks can be performed in parallel, such a distributionof tasks may reduce the total time to complete these tasks and return aresult. For purpose of simplicity, both server cluster 200 andindividual server devices 202 may be referred to as a “server device.”This nomenclature should be understood to imply that one or moredistinct server devices, data storage devices, and cluster routers maybe involved in server device operations.

Data storage 204 may be data storage arrays that include drive arraycontrollers configured to manage read and write access to groups of harddisk drives and/or solid state drives. The drive array controllers,alone or in conjunction with server devices 202, may also be configuredto manage backup or redundant copies of the data stored in data storage204 to protect against drive failures or other types of failures thatprevent one or more of server devices 202 from accessing units ofcluster data storage 204. Other types of memory aside from drives may beused.

Routers 206 may include networking equipment configured to provideinternal and external communications for server cluster 200. Forexample, routers 206 may include one or more packet-switching and/orrouting devices (including switches and/or gateways) configured toprovide (i) network communications between server devices 202 and datastorage 204 via cluster network 208, and/or (ii) network communicationsbetween the server cluster 200 and other devices via communication link210 to network 212.

Additionally, the configuration of cluster routers 206 can be based atleast in part on the data communication requirements of server devices202 and data storage 204, the latency and throughput of the localcluster network 208, the latency, throughput, and cost of communicationlink 210, and/or other factors that may contribute to the cost, speed,fault-tolerance, resiliency, efficiency and/or other design goals of thesystem architecture.

As a possible example, data storage 204 may include any form ofdatabase, such as a structured query language (SQL) database. Varioustypes of data structures may store the information in such a database,including but not limited to tables, arrays, lists, trees, and tuples.Furthermore, any databases in data storage 204 may be monolithic ordistributed across multiple physical devices.

Server devices 202 may be configured to transmit data to and receivedata from cluster data storage 204. This transmission and retrieval maytake the form of SQL queries or other types of database queries, and theoutput of such queries, respectively. Additional text, images, video,and/or audio may be included as well. Furthermore, server devices 202may organize the received data into web page representations. Such arepresentation may take the form of a markup language, such as thehypertext markup language (HTML), the extensible markup language (XML),or some other standardized or proprietary format. Moreover, serverdevices 202 may have the capability of executing various types ofcomputerized scripting languages, such as but not limited to Perl,Python, PHP Hypertext Preprocessor (PHP), Active Server Pages (ASP),JavaScript, and so on. Computer program code written in these languagesmay facilitate the providing of web pages to client devices, as well asclient device interaction with the web pages.

III. EXAMPLE REMOTE NETWORK MANAGEMENT ARCHITECTURE

FIG. 3 depicts a remote network management architecture, in accordancewith example embodiments. This architecture includes three maincomponents, managed network 300, remote network management platform 320,and third-party networks 340, all connected by way of Internet 350.

Managed network 300 may be, for example, an enterprise network used by abusiness for computing and communications tasks, as well as storage ofdata. Thus, managed network 300 may include various client devices 302,server devices 304, routers 306, virtual machines 308, firewall 310,and/or proxy servers 312. Client devices 302 may be embodied bycomputing device 100, server devices 304 may be embodied by computingdevice 100 or server cluster 200, and routers 306 may be any type ofrouter, switch, or gateway.

Virtual machines 308 may be embodied by one or more of computing device100 or server cluster 200. In general, a virtual machine is an emulationof a computing system, and mimics the functionality (e.g., processor,memory, and communication resources) of a physical computer. Onephysical computing system, such as server cluster 200, may support up tothousands of individual virtual machines. In some embodiments, virtualmachines 308 may be managed by a centralized server device orapplication that facilitates allocation of physical computing resourcesto individual virtual machines, as well as performance and errorreporting. Enterprises often employ virtual machines in order toallocate computing resources in an efficient, as needed fashion.Providers of virtualized computing systems include VMWARE® andMICROSOFT®.

Firewall 310 may be one or more specialized routers or server devicesthat protect managed network 300 from unauthorized attempts to accessthe devices, applications, and services therein, while allowingauthorized communication that is initiated from managed network 300.Firewall 310 may also provide intrusion detection, web filtering, virusscanning, application-layer gateways, and other applications orservices. In some embodiments not shown in FIG. 3, managed network 300may include one or more virtual private network (VPN) gateways withwhich it communicates with remote network management platform 320 (seebelow).

Managed network 300 may also include one or more proxy servers 312. Anembodiment of proxy servers 312 may be a server device that facilitatescommunication and movement of data between managed network 300, remotenetwork management platform 320, and third-party networks 340. Inparticular, proxy servers 312 may be able to establish and maintainsecure communication sessions with one or more computational instancesof remote network management platform 320. By way of such a session,remote network management platform 320 may be able to discover andmanage aspects of the architecture and configuration of managed network300 and its components. Possibly with the assistance of proxy servers312, remote network management platform 320 may also be able to discoverand manage aspects of third-party networks 340 that are used by managednetwork 300.

Firewalls, such as firewall 310, typically deny all communicationsessions that are incoming by way of Internet 350, unless such a sessionwas ultimately initiated from behind the firewall (i.e., from a deviceon managed network 300) or the firewall has been explicitly configuredto support the session. By placing proxy servers 312 behind firewall 310(e.g., within managed network 300 and protected by firewall 310), proxyservers 312 may be able to initiate these communication sessions throughfirewall 310. Thus, firewall 310 might not have to be specificallyconfigured to support incoming sessions from remote network managementplatform 320, thereby avoiding potential security risks to managednetwork 300.

In some cases, managed network 300 may consist of a few devices and asmall number of networks. In other deployments, managed network 300 mayspan multiple physical locations and include hundreds of networks andhundreds of thousands of devices. Thus, the architecture depicted inFIG. 3 is capable of scaling up or down by orders of magnitude.

Furthermore, depending on the size, architecture, and connectivity ofmanaged network 300, a varying number of proxy servers 312 may bedeployed therein. For example, each one of proxy servers 312 may beresponsible for communicating with remote network management platform320 regarding a portion of managed network 300. Alternatively oradditionally, sets of two or more proxy servers may be assigned to sucha portion of managed network 300 for purposes of load balancing,redundancy, and/or high availability.

Remote network management platform 320 is a hosted environment thatprovides aPaaS services to users, particularly to the operators ofmanaged network 300. These services may take the form of web-basedportals, for instance. Thus, a user can securely access remote networkmanagement platform 320 from, for instance, client devices 302, orpotentially from a client device outside of managed network 300. By wayof the web-based portals, users may design, test, and deployapplications, generate reports, view analytics, and perform other tasks.

As shown in FIG. 3, remote network management platform 320 includes fourcomputational instances 322, 324, 326, and 328. Each of these instancesmay represent a set of web portals, services, and applications (e.g., awholly-functioning aPaaS system) available to a particular customer. Insome cases, a single customer may use multiple computational instances.For example, managed network 300 may be an enterprise customer of remotenetwork management platform 320, and may use computational instances322, 324, and 326. The reason for providing multiple instances to onecustomer is that the customer may wish to independently develop, test,and deploy its applications and services. Thus, computational instance322 may be dedicated to application development related to managednetwork 300, computational instance 324 may be dedicated to testingthese applications, and computational instance 326 may be dedicated tothe live operation of tested applications and services. A computationalinstance may also be referred to as a hosted instance, a remoteinstance, a customer instance, or by some other designation.

The multi-instance architecture of remote network management platform320 is in contrast to conventional multi-tenant architectures, overwhich multi-instance architectures have several advantages. Inmulti-tenant architectures, data from different customers (e.g.,enterprises) are comingled in a single database. While these customers'data are separate from one another, the separation is enforced by thesoftware that operates the single database. As a consequence, a securitybreach in this system may impact all customers' data, creatingadditional risk, especially for entities subject to governmental,healthcare, and/or financial regulation. Furthermore, any databaseoperations that impact one customer will likely impact all customerssharing that database. Thus, if there is an outage due to hardware orsoftware errors, this outage affects all such customers. Likewise, ifthe database is to be upgraded to meet the needs of one customer, itwill be unavailable to all customers during the upgrade process. Often,such maintenance windows will be long, due to the size of the shareddatabase.

In contrast, the multi-instance architecture provides each customer withits own database in a dedicated computing instance. This preventscomingling of customer data, and allows each instance to beindependently managed. For example, when one customer's instanceexperiences an outage due to errors or an upgrade, other computationalinstances are not impacted. Maintenance down time is limited because thedatabase only contains one customer's data. Further, the simpler designof the multi-instance architecture allows redundant copies of eachcustomer database and instance to be deployed in a geographicallydiverse fashion. This facilitates high availability, where the liveversion of the customer's instance can be moved when faults are detectedor maintenance is being performed.

In order to support multiple computational instances in an efficientfashion, remote network management platform 320 may implement aplurality of these instances on a single hardware platform. For example,when the aPaaS system is implemented on a server cluster such as servercluster 200, it may operate a virtual machine that dedicates varyingamounts of computational, storage, and communication resources toinstances. But full virtualization of server cluster 200 might not benecessary, and other mechanisms may be used to separate instances. Insome examples, each instance may have a dedicated account and one ormore dedicated databases on server cluster 200. Alternatively,computational instance 322 may span multiple physical devices.

In some cases, a single server cluster of remote network managementplatform 320 may support multiple independent enterprises. Furthermore,as described below, remote network management platform 320 may includemultiple server clusters deployed in geographically diverse data centersin order to facilitate load balancing, redundancy, and/or highavailability.

Third-party networks 340 may be remote server devices (e.g., a pluralityof server clusters such as server cluster 200) that can be used foroutsourced computational, data storage, communication, and servicehosting operations. These servers may be virtualized (i.e., the serversmay be virtual machines). Examples of third-party networks 340 mayinclude AMAZON WEB SERVICES® and MICROSOFT® Azure. Like remote networkmanagement platform 320, multiple server clusters supporting third-partynetworks 340 may be deployed at geographically diverse locations forpurposes of load balancing, redundancy, and/or high availability.

Managed network 300 may use one or more of third-party networks 340 todeploy applications and services to its clients and customers. Forinstance, if managed network 300 provides online music streamingservices, third-party networks 340 may store the music files and provideweb interface and streaming capabilities. In this way, the enterprise ofmanaged network 300 does not have to build and maintain its own serversfor these operations.

Remote network management platform 320 may include modules thatintegrate with third-party networks 340 to expose virtual machines andmanaged services therein to managed network 300. The modules may allowusers to request virtual resources and provide flexible reporting forthird-party networks 340. In order to establish this functionality, auser from managed network 300 might first establish an account withthird-party networks 340, and request a set of associated resources.Then, the user may enter the account information into the appropriatemodules of remote network management platform 320. These modules maythen automatically discover the manageable resources in the account, andalso provide reports related to usage, performance, and billing.

Internet 350 may represent a portion of the global Internet. However,Internet 350 may alternatively represent a different type of network,such as a private wide-area or local-area packet-switched network.

FIG. 4 further illustrates the communication environment between managednetwork 300 and computational instance 322, and introduces additionalfeatures and alternative embodiments. In FIG. 4, computational instance322 is replicated across data centers 400A and 400B. These data centersmay be geographically distant from one another, perhaps in differentcities or different countries. Each data center includes supportequipment that facilitates communication with managed network 300, aswell as remote users.

In data center 400A, network traffic to and from external devices flowseither through VPN gateway 402A or firewall 404A. VPN gateway 402A maybe peered with VPN gateway 412 of managed network 300 by way of asecurity protocol such as Internet Protocol Security (IPSEC) orTransport Layer Security (TLS). Firewall 404A may be configured to allowaccess from authorized users, such as user 414 and remote user 416, andto deny access to unauthorized users. By way of firewall 404A, theseusers may access computational instance 322, and possibly othercomputational instances. Load balancer 406A may be used to distributetraffic amongst one or more physical or virtual server devices that hostcomputational instance 322. Load balancer 406A may simplify user accessby hiding the internal configuration of data center 400A, (e.g.,computational instance 322) from client devices. For instance, ifcomputational instance 322 includes multiple physical or virtualcomputing devices that share access to multiple databases, load balancer406A may distribute network traffic and processing tasks across thesecomputing devices and databases so that no one computing device ordatabase is significantly busier than the others. In some embodiments,computational instance 322 may include VPN gateway 402A, firewall 404A,and load balancer 406A.

Data center 400B may include its own versions of the components in datacenter 400A. Thus, VPN gateway 402B, firewall 404B, and load balancer406B may perform the same or similar operations as VPN gateway 402A,firewall 404A, and load balancer 406A, respectively. Further, by way ofreal-time or near-real-time database replication and/or otheroperations, computational instance 322 may exist simultaneously in datacenters 400A and 400B.

Data centers 400A and 400B as shown in FIG. 4 may facilitate redundancyand high availability. In the configuration of FIG. 4, data center 400Ais active and data center 400B is passive. Thus, data center 400A isserving all traffic to and from managed network 300, while the versionof computational instance 322 in data center 400B is being updated innear-real-time. Other configurations, such as one in which both datacenters are active, may be supported.

Should data center 400A fail in some fashion or otherwise becomeunavailable to users, data center 400B can take over as the active datacenter. For example, domain name system (DNS) servers that associate adomain name of computational instance 322 with one or more InternetProtocol (IP) addresses of data center 400A may re-associate the domainname with one or more IP addresses of data center 400B. After thisre-association completes (which may take less than one second or severalseconds), users may access computational instance 322 by way of datacenter 400B.

FIG. 4 also illustrates a possible configuration of managed network 300.As noted above, proxy servers 312 and user 414 may access computationalinstance 322 through firewall 310. Proxy servers 312 may also accessconfiguration items 410. In FIG. 4, configuration items 410 may refer toany or all of client devices 302, server devices 304, routers 306, andvirtual machines 308, any applications or services executing thereon, aswell as relationships between devices, applications, and services. Thus,the term “configuration items” may be shorthand for any physical orvirtual device, or any application or service remotely discoverable ormanaged by computational instance 322, or relationships betweendiscovered devices, applications, and services. Configuration items maybe represented in a configuration management database (CMDB) ofcomputational instance 322.

As noted above, VPN gateway 412 may provide a dedicated VPN to VPNgateway 402A. Such a VPN may be helpful when there is a significantamount of traffic between managed network 300 and computational instance322, or security policies otherwise suggest or require use of a VPNbetween these sites. In some embodiments, any device in managed network300 and/or computational instance 322 that directly communicates via theVPN is assigned a public IP address. Other devices in managed network300 and/or computational instance 322 may be assigned private IPaddresses (e.g., IP addresses selected from the 10.0.0.0-10.255.255.255or 192.168.0.0-192.168.255.255 ranges, represented in shorthand assubnets 10.0.0.0/8 and 192.168.0.0/16, respectively).

IV. EXAMPLE DEVICE, APPLICATION, AND SERVICE DISCOVERY

In order for remote network management platform 320 to administer thedevices, applications, and services of managed network 300, remotenetwork management platform 320 may first determine what devices arepresent in managed network 300, the configurations and operationalstatuses of these devices, and the applications and services provided bythe devices, and well as the relationships between discovered devices,applications, and services. As noted above, each device, application,service, and relationship may be referred to as a configuration item.The process of defining configuration items within managed network 300is referred to as discovery, and may be facilitated at least in part byproxy servers 312.

For purpose of the embodiments herein, an “application” may refer to oneor more processes, threads, programs, client modules, server modules, orany other software that executes on a device or group of devices. A“service” may refer to a high-level capability provided by multipleapplications executing on one or more devices working in conjunctionwith one another. For example, a high-level web service may involvemultiple web application server threads executing on one device andaccessing information from a database application that executes onanother device.

FIG. 5A provides a logical depiction of how configuration items can bediscovered, as well as how information related to discoveredconfiguration items can be stored. For sake of simplicity, remotenetwork management platform 320, third-party networks 340, and Internet350 are not shown.

In FIG. 5A, CMDB 500 and task list 502 are stored within computationalinstance 322. Computational instance 322 may transmit discovery commandsto proxy servers 312. In response, proxy servers 312 may transmit probesto various devices, applications, and services in managed network 300.These devices, applications, and services may transmit responses toproxy servers 312, and proxy servers 312 may then provide informationregarding discovered configuration items to CMDB 500 for storagetherein. Configuration items stored in CMDB 500 represent theenvironment of managed network 300.

Task list 502 represents a list of activities that proxy servers 312 areto perform on behalf of computational instance 322. As discovery takesplace, task list 502 is populated. Proxy servers 312 repeatedly querytask list 502, obtain the next task therein, and perform this task untiltask list 502 is empty or another stopping condition has been reached.

To facilitate discovery, proxy servers 312 may be configured withinformation regarding one or more subnets in managed network 300 thatare reachable by way of proxy servers 312. For instance, proxy servers312 may be given the IP address range 192.168.0/24 as a subnet. Then,computational instance 322 may store this information in CMDB 500 andplace tasks in task list 502 for discovery of devices at each of theseaddresses.

FIG. 5A also depicts devices, applications, and services in managednetwork 300 as configuration items 504, 506, 508, 510, and 512. As notedabove, these configuration items represent a set of physical and/orvirtual devices (e.g., client devices, server devices, routers, orvirtual machines), applications executing thereon (e.g., web servers,email servers, databases, or storage arrays), relationshipstherebetween, as well as services that involve multiple individualconfiguration items.

Placing the tasks in task list 502 may trigger or otherwise cause proxyservers 312 to begin discovery. Alternatively or additionally, discoverymay be manually triggered or automatically triggered based on triggeringevents (e.g., discovery may automatically begin once per day at aparticular time).

In general, discovery may proceed in four logical phases: scanning,classification, identification, and exploration. Each phase of discoveryinvolves various types of probe messages being transmitted by proxyservers 312 to one or more devices in managed network 300. The responsesto these probes may be received and processed by proxy servers 312, andrepresentations thereof may be transmitted to CMDB 500. Thus, each phasecan result in more configuration items being discovered and stored inCMDB 500.

In the scanning phase, proxy servers 312 may probe each IP address inthe specified range of IP addresses for open Transmission ControlProtocol (TCP) and/or User Datagram Protocol (UDP) ports to determinethe general type of device. The presence of such open ports at an IPaddress may indicate that a particular application is operating on thedevice that is assigned the IP address, which in turn may identify theoperating system used by the device. For example, if TCP port 135 isopen, then the device is likely executing a WINDOWS® operating system.Similarly, if TCP port 22 is open, then the device is likely executing aUNIX® operating system, such as LINUX®. If UDP port 161 is open, thenthe device may be able to be further identified through the SimpleNetwork Management Protocol (SNMP). Other possibilities exist. Once thepresence of a device at a particular IP address and its open ports havebeen discovered, these configuration items are saved in CMDB 500.

In the classification phase, proxy servers 312 may further probe eachdiscovered device to determine the version of its operating system. Theprobes used for a particular device are based on information gatheredabout the devices during the scanning phase. For example, if a device isfound with TCP port 22 open, a set of UNIX®-specific probes may be used.Likewise, if a device is found with TCP port 135 open, a set ofWINDOWS®-specific probes may be used. For either case, an appropriateset of tasks may be placed in task list 502 for proxy servers 312 tocarry out. These tasks may result in proxy servers 312 logging on, orotherwise accessing information from the particular device. Forinstance, if TCP port 22 is open, proxy servers 312 may be instructed toinitiate a Secure Shell (SSH) connection to the particular device andobtain information about the operating system thereon from particularlocations in the file system. Based on this information, the operatingsystem may be determined. As an example, a UNIX® device with TCP port 22open may be classified as AIX®, HPUX, LINUX®, MACOS®, or SOLARIS®. Thisclassification information may be stored as one or more configurationitems in CMDB 500.

In the identification phase, proxy servers 312 may determine specificdetails about a classified device. The probes used during this phase maybe based on information gathered about the particular devices during theclassification phase. For example, if a device was classified as LINUX®,a set of LINUX®-specific probes may be used. Likewise if a device wasclassified as WINDOWS® 2012, as a set of WINDOWS®-2012-specific probesmay be used. As was the case for the classification phase, anappropriate set of tasks may be placed in task list 502 for proxyservers 312 to carry out. These tasks may result in proxy servers 312reading information from the particular device, such as basicinput/output system (BIOS) information, serial numbers, networkinterface information, media access control address(es) assigned tothese network interface(s), IP address(es) used by the particular deviceand so on. This identification information may be stored as one or moreconfiguration items in CMDB 500.

In the exploration phase, proxy servers 312 may determine furtherdetails about the operational state of a classified device. The probesused during this phase may be based on information gathered about theparticular devices during the classification phase and/or theidentification phase. Again, an appropriate set of tasks may be placedin task list 502 for proxy servers 312 to carry out. These tasks mayresult in proxy servers 312 reading additional information from theparticular device, such as processor information, memory information,lists of running processes (applications), and so on. Once more, thediscovered information may be stored as one or more configuration itemsin CMDB 500.

Running discovery on a network device, such as a router, may utilizeSNMP. Instead of or in addition to determining a list of runningprocesses or other application-related information, discovery maydetermine additional subnets known to the router and the operationalstate of the router's network interfaces (e.g., active, inactive, queuelength, number of packets dropped, etc.). The IP addresses of theadditional subnets may be candidates for further discovery procedures.Thus, discovery may progress iteratively or recursively.

Once discovery completes, a snapshot representation of each discovereddevice, application, and service is available in CMDB 500. For example,after discovery, operating system version, hardware configuration andnetwork configuration details for client devices, server devices, androuters in managed network 300, as well as applications executingthereon, may be stored. This collected information may be presented to auser in various ways to allow the user to view the hardware compositionand operational status of devices, as well as the characteristics ofservices that span multiple devices and applications.

Furthermore, CMDB 500 may include entries regarding dependencies andrelationships between configuration items. More specifically, anapplication that is executing on a particular server device, as well asthe services that rely on this application, may be represented as suchin CMDB 500. For instance, suppose that a database application isexecuting on a server device, and that this database application is usedby a new employee onboarding service as well as a payroll service. Thus,if the server device is taken out of operation for maintenance, it isclear that the employee onboarding service and payroll service will beimpacted. Likewise, the dependencies and relationships betweenconfiguration items may be able to represent the services impacted whena particular router fails.

In general, dependencies and relationships between configuration itemsbe displayed on a web-based interface and represented in a hierarchicalfashion. Thus, adding, changing, or removing such dependencies andrelationships may be accomplished by way of this interface.

Furthermore, users from managed network 300 may develop workflows thatallow certain coordinated activities to take place across multiplediscovered devices. For instance, an IT workflow might allow the user tochange the common administrator password to all discovered LINUX®devices in single operation.

In order for discovery to take place in the manner described above,proxy servers 312, CMDB 500, and/or one or more credential stores may beconfigured with credentials for one or more of the devices to bediscovered. Credentials may include any type of information needed inorder to access the devices. These may include userid/password pairs,certificates, and so on. In some embodiments, these credentials may bestored in encrypted fields of CMDB 500. Proxy servers 312 may containthe decryption key for the credentials so that proxy servers 312 can usethese credentials to log on to or otherwise access devices beingdiscovered.

The discovery process is depicted as a flow chart in FIG. 5B. At block520, the task list in the computational instance is populated, forinstance, with a range of IP addresses. At block 522, the scanning phasetakes place. Thus, the proxy servers probe the IP addresses for devicesusing these IP addresses, and attempt to determine the operating systemsthat are executing on these devices. At block 524, the classificationphase takes place. The proxy servers attempt to determine the operatingsystem version of the discovered devices. At block 526, theidentification phase takes place. The proxy servers attempt to determinethe hardware and/or software configuration of the discovered devices. Atblock 528, the exploration phase takes place. The proxy servers attemptto determine the operational state and applications executing on thediscovered devices. At block 530, further editing of the configurationitems representing the discovered devices and applications may takeplace. This editing may be automated and/or manual in nature.

The blocks represented in FIG. 5B are for purpose of example. Discoverymay be a highly configurable procedure that can have more or fewerphases, and the operations of each phase may vary. In some cases, one ormore phases may be customized, or may otherwise deviate from theexemplary descriptions above.

V. EXAMPLE EMAIL MESSAGE FORMATS AND INDICATORS OF PHISHING ATTACKS

As discussed above, a managed network may host dozens, hundreds, orthousands of computing devices that serve a similar number of users. Oneof the most prevalent network services for managed networks is email.Users on a managed network may receive dozens of email messages per dayfrom other users of the managed network, as well as from sources outsideof the managed network.

In recent years, phishing has become a prevalent, and somewhateffective, method of cybercrime. A phishing attack involves sending anumber of users (usually a large number of users, some of whom may bespecifically targeted in “spear phishing” attacks) email messages thatappear to be legitimate alerts or requests for information. In somecases, the phishing emails include hyperlinks to a fake web site thatmimics the appearance and functionality of a real web site. The user isencouraged to enter sensitive private information, such as userids,passwords, credit card numbers, social security numbers, and so on, intothe fake web site. Some phishing attacks include attachments in thephishing emails that, when downloaded to a computing device andexecuted, deploy malware on that computing device. This malware maysearch the computing device for sensitive private information totransmit to the attacker, and may attempt to scan the managed networkfor opportunities to spread to other devices.

Clearly, it is important to rapidly mitigate the threat of phishingattacks, especially on managed networks where a large number of usersand devices can be impacted. But in order to do so, an understanding ofthe format and content of email messages can be helpful. With thisunderstanding, attention can be focused on the parts of email messagesthat are most likely indicative of whether the email messages arephishing attacks.

For purpose of illustration, many of the embodiments described hereinfocus on phishing attacks that use email messages to reach users. It ispossible, however, for phishing attacks to use other mechanisms. Shortmessage service (SMS) messages, as well as instant messaging (IM)messages and group chat messages can be used as well. Thus, theembodiments herein are not limited to email messages.

FIG. 6A shows display 600 of an example email message. Display 600illustrates how a typical email client application may present an emailmessage to a user. The top four lines of the email message contain the“From”, “To”, “Subject”, and “Date” headers, respectively. These headersindicate the putative sender (Bob Smith with an email address ofbsmith@example.com), putative recipient (Alice Jones with an emailaddress of alice@company.com), putative subject of the email (“Lunchtoday?”), and the putative time and date at which the email message wassent (Thursday, Aug. 31, 2017 at 10:44:17 AM). The remainder of thisparticular email message is its body, which is a message, allegedly fromBob Smith to Alice Jones, asking her if they could meet for lunch at12:15. There are no attachments.

Consistent with how email client applications present email messages,not all information in the actual email message is shown in display 600.In particular, an email message often contains numerous headers withadditional information, as shown in display 602. The first four lines ofdisplay 602 include the four headers shown in display 600. But display602 also includes further headers that provide valuable information thatcan be used to infer whether an email message is a phishing attack.

For example, the “Delivered-To” header indicates the email address towhich the email message was delivered. This header is followed by two“Received” headers. Each “Received” header is added by an email server,gateway or relay that forwards the email message on to its destination,or is the final destination of the email message.

For instance, the first “Received” header in display 602 indicates thata device with IP address 10.103.136.1 received the email message onThursday, Aug. 31, 2017 at 10:44:40. This device is likely the ultimatedestination email server that provides the email message to a clientdevice.

The second “Received” header indicates that a device with domain namemx.company.com received the email message on Thursday, Aug. 31, 2017 at10:44:40 from a device with domain name mail.example.com and IP address192.168.174.248. This header also indicates that the recipient of themessage was specified as alice@company.com.

The information in both of the “Received” headers suggests that theemail message was transmitted by mail.example.com to mx.company.com inorder to be delivered to alice@company.com. Then, mx.company.comforwarded the email message to the device with IP address 10.103.136.1for actual delivery to Alice Jones's inbox. There may be several“Received” headers in an email message, and these may appear in anyorder.

The “Received-SPF” header provides the result of a sender policyframework (SPF) lookup of the putative sending host. SPF is a validationtechnique for detecting whether an email message has been transmittedfrom a domain by a host authorized to do so. Each domain may store alist of authorized sending hosts in DNS records for that domain.Phishing attacks often use forged “From” addresses, so checking SPFrecords can be used to detect these efforts. Thus, the “Received-SPF”header in display 602 indicates that the SPF check has passed, because“example.com designates 192.168.174.248 as permitted sender.”

The “Return-Path” header gives the email address of Bob Smith,bsmith@example.com. In general, this header is set to a value providedby the sending system as an email bounce address—email address to whichundeliverable emails should be transmitted.

The final two headers, “Accept-Language” and “Message-ID” specify thelanguage to be used in responses, and a unique identifier of the emailmessage, respectfully. Both are typically set by the sender of the emailmessage.

An email message may contain numerous headers, and only examples thereofare displayed in FIG. 6A. Some of these headers may be placed in theemail message by an email server associated with the sender. Others maybe placed in the email message by intermediate email servers or an emailserver associated with the recipient. In general, an email server caninsert or overwrite almost any header when it is generating,transmitting, or receiving an email message. Thus, email messages areparticularly vulnerable to fraud and/or spoofing attacks that involvefalsified header information.

From the information in these headers, and well as that of the body, anestimation of whether the email message is a phishing attack can bemade. But in order to appreciate the procedures for doing so, it ishelpful to consider an example email that contains such an attack.

FIG. 6B shows display 610 of another example email message. Display 610also illustrates how a typical email client application may present anemail message to a user. The headers shown in display 610 indicate theputative sender (Felix with an email address of user@bankofequity.co),putative recipient (Alice Jones with an email address ofalice@company.com), putative subject of the email (“September payment”),and the putative time and date at which the email message was sent(Friday, Sep. 8, 2017 at 1:31:08 PM). The remainder of this particularemail message is its body, which is a message supposedly requesting apayment of 9.91 British pounds. The email message also contains anattachment. This attachment has a file name extension that suggests thatit is a zip file containing one or more compressed files.

Display 612 shows additional headers for the email message. Mostnotably, the second “Received” header indicates that mx.company.comreceived the email message from the domain static.sprof.zvnx, which hasan IP address of 172.20.17.194. However, the “Received-SPF” headerindicates that the SPF lookup failed, as the domain bankofequity.co isnot authorized to use the email server at 172.20.17.194 to send emailmessages. Furthermore, several of the headers contain suspicious-lookingdomains. For instance, the domain static.sprof.zvnx does not appear tohave a legitimate top level domain (“zvnx”) and the “Return-Path” headercontains an email address that appears to be the result of randomtyping. The fact that the email address in the “Return-Path” header isnot the same as the email address in the “From” header is not unusualand might not be suspicious in and of itself—this practice is commonwhen sending emails to mailing lists. Also, the email address in the“From” header is user@bankofequity.co, but also gives the sender's nameas “Felix”.

Additionally, the email body itself is suspicious, as it containsspelling errors, poor grammar, improper punctuation, and unusual use ofwhitespace. The URL embedded in the email(http://www.bankofequity.co/wenf&23), may lead to a fake web site thatemulates a real web site, and attempt to get the visitor to enter his orher credentials for the real web site. The attachment may be problematicas well, because it purports to be a zip file. Zip files, executablefiles, and other types of files are commonly used to distribute malwareto the recipient's computing device. The user may download and run thefile, which causes the malware to be installed on the computing device.

In and of themselves, each of these factors might or might not mean thatthe email message of displays 610 and 612 is a phishing attack. But thecombination thereof strongly indicates that this is the case. Perhapsthe most powerful indicator of the email message being a phishing attackis the failed SPF lookup shown in the “Received-SPF” header.

Nonetheless, phishing attacks can be difficult to differentiate fromspam emails (e.g., unsolicited or junk emails). Unlike phishing attacks,spam emails are generally harmless attempts to sell goods or services,and do not try to obtain the recipient's sensitive private information.But determining whether a particular email message is legitimate, spam,or phishing can be a challenge to even today's sophisticated machinelearning techniques. Email filtering software operated by an enterpriseor an Internet service provider (ISP) can accurately detect some, butnot all, phishing attacks. Thus, at least some fraction of phishingattacks will arrive in user's email inbox.

In order to mitigate the potential damage of phishing attacks that aredelivered to users, enterprises may educate their employees on how tovisually inspect email messages for characteristics of phishing.Employees may be encouraged to forward email messages containingsuspected phishing attacks to a distinct email address for furtheranalysis by a security professional.

As a result, the enterprise may be able to obtain an improved assessmentof the prevalence and type of phishing attacks involving its employees.In doing so, the enterprise may be able to detect common phishingattacks, the impact of successful phishing attacks, and mitigate thisimpact. For instance, if a particular type of phishing attack has adistinct signature (e.g., a specific URL that leads to a fake web siteor a specific attachment), the enterprise can add rules to its emailfiltering software so that these email messages containing these attacksare not delivered to the intended recipient. Alternatively oradditionally, if a particular type of phishing attack installsparticular malware on computing devices when successful, the enterprisemay be able to identify which computing devices are infected, and takesteps to eradicate the malware. This may involve updating anti-malwaresoftware on the computing devices, manually deleting files on thecomputing devices, editing configurations of the computing devices,and/or reformatting the disk drives and reinstalling the operatingsystems on the computing devices.

Thus, detection, containment, and eradication of problems caused byphishing attacks can take hours or days when performed by securityprofessionals. But when addressing these attacks, time is of theessence. The longer the security professional takes to mitigate theimpact of a phishing attack, the longer this attack is able to targetadditional users, and spread from infected computing devices. It is notuncommon for the complexity of determining the existence and extent of aphishing attack, as well as the time required to address it, to be sogreat that security problems caused by the attack can continue to spreaddespite mitigation efforts.

Thus, the embodiments herein are technical solutions to at least thetechnical problem of addressing phishing attacks in a rapid fashion.Furthermore, these solutions are fundamentally tied to computers andnetworking, as phishing attacks only exist in a computer networkingenvironment.

VI. NETWORK ARCHITECTURE FOR ADDRESSING PHISHING ATTACKS IN MANAGEDNETWORKS

FIG. 7A depicts a network architecture that can provide automatedsecurity threat detection and mitigation, including threats related tophishing attacks. The architecture includes managed network 300 andcomputational instance 322, which can communicate with one another overinternet 714 (which may be the public Internet, a private network, orany wide-area network). Third-party threat database 716 may also becommunicatively coupled to internet 714.

Managed network 300 may include a number of devices, systems, and/orsoftware applications, including those depicted as security enforcementpoints in FIG. 7A. These devices are firewall 700, intrusion detectionsystem (IDS)/intrusion prevention system (IPS) 702, email server 704,email client 706, and client devices 708.

As noted above, a firewall, such as firewall 700, may be one or morespecialized routers or server devices that protect managed network 300from unauthorized attempts to access the devices, applications, andservices therein, while allowing authorized communication.

IDS/IPS 702 may be a device or application that monitors a network(usually in a passive fashion) for malicious activity or policyviolations. An IPS may include at least some capability to respond todetected threats. For instance, an IPS may be able to dynamicallyconfigure a firewall to block an attack or dynamically change thecontent of network traffic involved in the attack.

Email server 704 may be a device or software application that receivesincoming mail and either forwards it to the recipient's computingdevice, or stores it in an inbox for the recipient to review orotherwise process. Email client 706 may be a device or softwareapplication that communicates with email server 704 to receive emailsfor one or more particular recipients. Email client 706 may also includeuser interface capabilities that can display received email messages ina fashion similar to display 600 and display 610, or in a differentformat. Email server 704 and email client 706 may communicate accordingto standardized or proprietary protocols.

Client devices 708 may include one or more computing devices intendedfor operation by users. For instance, these devices may be personalcomputers, laptops, tablets, smartphones, and so on. Client devices 708may execute various types of anti-malware software, such as anti-virusapplications, that attempt to detect, isolate, and remove malware thatinfects client devices 708. To do so, the anti-malware software may needto be periodically updated with signatures or other indications of newforms of malware.

Although not explicitly shown in FIG. 7A, any of firewall 700, IDS/IPS702, email server 704, email client 706, and client devices 708 mayinclude a spam filter software application. Such an application mayattempt to detect unsolicited and/or unwanted email messages and preventthose messages from reaching the intended recipient's inbox. Emailmessages marked as spam may either be delivered to a spam folder insteadof the inbox, or may be quarantined remotely. In some cases, spamfilters can also detect certain types of phishing attacks, but thegrowing sophistication of these attacks results in at least somephishing attacks getting through the spam filter unscathed, and beingdelivered to a user's inbox.

Some spam filters use machine learning techniques to score emailmessages, and then use this score to decide whether these email messagesshould be categorized as spam. For example, email messages withsuspicious headers, such as a failed SPF lookups, are scored such thatfuture email messages with similarly suspicious headers are more likelyto be categorized as spam. Likewise, email messages with certainkeywords, phrases, or URLs in their bodies may also be scored such thatthey are more likely to be categorized as spam. Such a spam filter may,from time to time, be provided with examples of actual spam and non-spamin order to improve its classification capabilities.

Computational instance 322 may include a security decision point 710 anda security incident database 712. Security decision point 710 may be adevice or software application that, on its own or with assistance fromother entities, analyzes reports of suspected or actual phishing attacksto determine their characteristics and extent. Security incidentdatabase 712 may include records of such phishing attacks, and may serveas a repository for tracking these characteristics over time, as well asdetermining the extent of devices and/or users impacted.

Third-party threat database 716 may be a device and/or softwareapplication that stores feature vectors associated with particularobserved security threats, including phishing attacks. Third-partythreat database 716 may include APIs that are capable of receivingrequests that specify one or more features of a feature vector andresponsively providing a list of one or more security threats that areassociated with the one or more features. In some cases, third-partythreat database 716 may be accessible by way of internet 714, as shownin FIG. 7A. Alternatively, third-party threat database 716 may belocated within computational instance 322 or remote network managementplatform 320 in general.

The operations of these components are further illustrated in theexample of FIG. 7B. Particularly, FIG. 7B is a message flow diagramdepicting detection and mitigation of a phishing attack.

At step 720, email server 704 receives an email message. For purpose ofexample, it is assumed that the email message contains a phishingattack. For instance, the email message may include header and bodycontent the same as or similar to those depicted in FIG. 6B.

At step 722, email server 704 applies a security policy to the emailmessage. The policy may be pre-defined, and may be a spam filter policy,for instance. As such, email server 704 may scan the headers and/or bodyof the email message. For instance, email server 704 may apply spamfiltering techniques in order to classify the email message as eitherspam or non-spam. Phishing attacks may be considered to be spam by thespam filter policy.

For purpose of example, it is assumed that the email message is notclassified as spam despite the phishing attack contained within. Asnoted above, this is not uncommon, as clever phishing attacks canclosely resemble legitimate email messages.

In any event, at step 724, email server 704 transmits the email messageto email client 706. There, it may be viewed by a human recipient. Thehuman recipient, if well-informed, may suspect that the email message isa phishing attack. Accordingly, the human recipient may forward theemail message to a designated email address and/or inbox associated withsecurity decision point 710. As such, step 726 may involve the emailmessage being sent to email server 704.

In an alternative embodiment, email server 704 or email client 706 maybe able to automatically determine that the email message contains thephishing attack. Thus, either of these components may forward the emailmessage to security decision point 710.

Regardless, at step 728, the forwarded email may arrive at securitydecision point 710. At step 730, security decision point 710 may parsethe message for observable indicators of a phishing attack. Examples ofobservable indicators may include the putative sender and recipient ofthe email message, domain names and/or IP addresses of any email serversthat were involved in transmission of the email message, URLs containedin the body of the email message, the file names of any attachments,and/or the output of applying a one-way hash function to each of theseattachments.

Notably, using the hash function allows the file to be represented in ashort, fixed-length format (a few bytes) so that the file itself doesnot need to be stored. Examples of hash functions include MD6 and SHA-3.

At step 732, security decision point 710 may transmit at least some ofthese observable indicators to third-party threat database 716. Theobservable indicators may be represented using a feature vector format.

In response, third-party threat database 716 may perform a lookup of theobservable indicators against stored feature vectors. If there is amatch between the observable indicators and one or more of the storedfeature vectors, third-party threat database 716 may identify theobservable indicators as signifying a threat. Accordingly, at step 734,a representation of the characterized threat may be transmitted tosecurity decision point 710. This representation may be a numeric code,a text string, a binary identifier, or some other way of representing athreat.

An example feature vector may be in the format of an array of values,such as [<sender email address>, <recipient email address>, <domainname(s) of email server(s)>, <IP address(es) of email server(s)>,<URL(s) in email message(s)>, <file name(s) of attachment(s)>, <hashoutput(s) of attachment(s)>]. This is just one potential arrangement andother possibilities exist. In the case of the email message of FIG. 6B,the feature vector might be: [“user@bankofequity.co”,“alice@company.com”, “static.sprof.zvnx”, “172.20.17.194”,“http://www.bankofequity.co/wenf&23”, “P_187570_201708.zip”,“A7FE71AED88F”].

In some cases, a feature vector will not contain entries for elements.For instance, if a suspected email phishing attack without a URL orattachment is processed, the last three elements of the feature vectormay contain null, empty-string, or zeroed-out values. Accordingly, theseelements might not be considered when matching the observable indicatorsto stored feature vectors. Furthermore, not all of the observableindicators provided need match all of the features in a feature vectorin order for security decision point 710 to find a match. Securitydecision point 710 may classify threats based on partial matches. Forinstance, given the example feature vector above for the email messageof FIG. 6B, any set of observable indicators including a URL ofhttp://www.bankofequity.co/wenf&23 and attachment file name ofP_187570_201708.zip may be considered to be associated with a phishingattack.

If security decision point 710 receives an indication from third-partythreat database 716 that the provided observable indicators areassociated with a threat (e.g., at step 734), security decision pointmay update both security incident database 712 and one or more deviceson managed network 300.

For instance, at step 736, security decision point 710 may transmit acopy of the email message and/or its observable indicators to securityincident database 712. In response, at step 738, security incidentdatabase 712 may store this information. By maintaining securityincident database 712, security professionals may be able to rapidlydetermine the users and/or devices impacted by a newly-observed phishingattack. For instance, security incident database 712 may provide agraphical user interface that allows security professionals to searchfor observable indicators that were reported in the past. As an example,a security professional might search for previous incidents in whichemail messages contained the URL http://www.bankofequity.co/wenf&23. Inthe case that one or more are found, the security professional mightcheck the users or devices involved with these previous incidents todetermine whether the users accessed the URL and/or downloaded anyassociated attachments to their devices.

At step 740, security decision point 710 may transmit a security policyupdate to email server 704. This security policy update may instructemail server 704 to block any future incoming email messages thatcontain one or more observable indicators (e.g., email address, IPaddress, domain name, URL, attachment file name, or attachment hashvalue), where these observable indicators match those of the currentemail message. For example, email server 704 may prevent delivery of anyemail message containing the URL http://www.bankofequity.co/wenf&23 orhaving a putative sender of user@bankofequity.co. These messages may bearchived for future reference or deleted.

In an alternative or additional embodiment not explicitly shown in FIG.7B, a security policy update may be transmitted to firewall 700. Similarto the security policy update of step 740, this security policy updatemay instruct firewall 700 to block incoming email messages that containone or more observable indicators (e.g., email address, IP address,domain name, URL, attachment file name, or attachment hash value), wherethese observable indicators match those of the current email message.

In another alternative or additional embodiment not explicitly shown inFIG. 7B, a security policy update may be transmitted to email client706. This security policy update may instruct email client 706 to blockincoming email messages that contain one or more observable indicators(e.g., email address, IP address, domain name, URL, attachment filename, or attachment hash value), where these observable indicators matchthose of the current email message.

In another alternative or additional embodiment not explicitly shown inFIG. 7B, a security policy update may be transmitted one or more ofdevices 708. This security policy update may instruct anti-malwareapplications executing on these devices to scan for the fileP_187570_201708.zip or evidence that such a file has been downloaded orinstalled on the device. If these devices are executing endpointfirewall software, the security policy update may instruct the firewallsoftware to block incoming email messages that contain one or moreobservable indicators (e.g., email address, IP address, domain name,URL, attachment file name, or attachment hash value), where theseobservable indicators match those of the current email message.

In another alternative or additional embodiment not explicitly shown inFIG. 7B, a security policy update may be transmitted to the device ofIDS/IPS 702. This security policy update may instruct IDS/IPS 702 toflag, as security threats, incoming email messages that contain one ormore observable indicators (e.g., email address, IP address, domainname, URL, attachment file name, or attachment hash value), where theseobservable indicators match those of the current email message.

In some embodiments, third-party threat database may specify that theobservable indicators that it received at step 732 are not indicative ofa phishing attack. In this case, the email message is most likely spam.Accordingly, security decision point 710 may transmit an update to aspam filter that is either part of email server 704, email client 706,or a separate entity not shown in FIG. 7B. This update may make it morelikely that the spam filter prevents normal delivery of future emailmessages with these observable indicators (e.g., such email messages maybe sent to the recipient's spam folder or quarantined elsewhere). Inthis way, recipients are less likely to forward an email message tosecurity decision point 710 as a potential phishing attack when thatemail message merely is spam. As such, conclusions drawn by securitydecision point 710 are based on fewer “false positives” from users, andtherefore are more likely to be accurate. Additionally, the load onsecurity decision point 710 is reduced.

VII. EXAMPLE OPERATIONS

FIG. 8 is a flow chart illustrating an example embodiment. The processillustrated by FIG. 8 may be carried out by a computing device, such ascomputing device 100, and/or a cluster of computing devices, such asserver cluster 200. However, the process can be carried out by othertypes of devices or device subsystems. For example, the process could becarried out by a portable computer, such as a laptop or a tablet device.

The embodiments of FIG. 8 may be simplified by the removal of any one ormore of the features shown therein. Further, these embodiments may becombined with features, aspects, and/or implementations of any of theprevious figures or otherwise described herein.

Block 800 may involve receiving, at a security decision point devicedisposed within a computational instance of a remote network managementplatform, a message by way of a managed network. The message may havebeen obtained by a particular computing device disposed within themanaged network. The computational instance may be dedicated to servingthe managed network.

Block 802 may involve parsing, by the security decision point device,the message to identify observable indicators of one or more of thesecurity threats. The observable indicators may include at least one ofa network addresses, a hyperlink, or a representation of an attachedfile. The network address may be, for example, an email address, adomain name, an IP address, or some other form of address.

Block 804 may involve remotely querying, by the security decision pointdevice, a security threat database for the observable indicators.

Block 806 may involve receiving, by the security decision point deviceand from the security threat database, an indication that the observableindicators are associated with a particular security threat.

Block 808 may involve transmitting, by the security decision pointdevice and to a security enforcement point device disposed within themanaged network, a command to update a security policy of the securityenforcement point device such that the particular security threat ismitigated. Reception of the command may cause the security enforcementpoint device to change operation to be in accordance with the updatedsecurity policy.

In some embodiments, the message is an email message containing thenetwork address and the hyperlink. The network address may be containedwithin a header of the email message and may be an IP address from whichthe email message was sent. The hyperlink may be a URL contained withina body of the email message.

In some embodiments, the message is an email message containing thenetwork address and the hyperlink. The network address may be containedwithin a header of the email message and may be a source email address.The hyperlink may be a URL contained within a body of the email message.

In some embodiments, the representation of the attached file is a hashthat is computed by applying a one-way function to the attached file. Inalternative embodiments, the representation of the attached file is aname of the attached file.

In some embodiments, the security enforcement point device is an emailserver device that receives email messages on behalf of the managednetwork. The updated security policy may cause the email device toprevent delivery of any of the received email messages that contain thenetwork address, the hyperlink, or any file with characteristics thatmatch the representation of the attached file.

In some embodiments, the security enforcement point device is anendpoint computing device on the managed network that is executinganti-malware software. The updated security policy may cause theanti-malware software to identify, when it appears in further emailmessages, the attached file as malware and quarantine the attached file.

In some embodiments, the security enforcement point device is a firewalldevice on the managed network. The updated security policy may cause thefirewall to block incoming network traffic from the network address thatcontains the hyperlink or any file with characteristics that match therepresentation of the attached file.

In some embodiments, receiving the message by way of the managed networkcomprises receiving the message as a forwarded email from the particularcomputing device.

In some embodiments, the security decision point device is furtherconfigured to provide an alert that the particular security threat hasbeen observed. In some embodiments, the security decision point deviceis further configured to store, in a security incident database disposedwithin the computational instance, a record of the particular securitythreat as observed, including at least one of the network addresses, thehyperlink, or the representation of the attached file.

In some embodiments, the message is an email message that contains theattached file, wherein the email message was received by an email serverdevice associated with the managed network. The security decision pointdevice may be further configured to query the email server device todetermine a number of times that the attached file has been received bythe email server device, a number of email accounts to which theattached file was delivered, and/or the email accounts to which theattached file was delivered. In some cases, this query may include otherobservables parsed from the phishing email like sender header values,subject header values, and domain names and URLs within the body.

In some embodiments, the security decision point device is furtherconfigured to: receive a second message by way of the managed network,wherein the second message is a second email message; parse the secondmessage to identify second observable indicators of one or more of thesecurity threats; remotely query the security threat database with thesecond observable indicators; receive, from the security threatdatabase, a second indication that the second observable indicators arenot associated with any of the security threats; and transmit, to anemail spam filter associated with the managed network, the secondmessage with an second indication that the second message is not spam.Reception of the second message and the second indication may cause theemail spam filter to update its filtering rules. The second observableindicators may include at least one of a second network addresses, asecond hyperlink, or a second representation of a second attached file.

These embodiments facilitate understanding the scope of the threatwithin the organization receiving the message. Further, they may beenhanced by searching an email server for similar messages, search logstores for similar messages, and by way of endpoint tools searching fora hash of any suspect file attachments. These techniques can helpdetermine which users received the message and downloaded theattachments.

VIII. CONCLUSION

The present disclosure is not to be limited in terms of the particularembodiments described in this application, which are intended asillustrations of various aspects. Many modifications and variations canbe made without departing from its scope, as will be apparent to thoseskilled in the art. Functionally equivalent methods and apparatuseswithin the scope of the disclosure, in addition to those describedherein, will be apparent to those skilled in the art from the foregoingdescriptions. Such modifications and variations are intended to fallwithin the scope of the appended claims.

The above detailed description describes various features and operationsof the disclosed systems, devices, and methods with reference to theaccompanying figures. The example embodiments described herein and inthe figures are not meant to be limiting. Other embodiments can beutilized, and other changes can be made, without departing from thescope of the subject matter presented herein. It will be readilyunderstood that the aspects of the present disclosure, as generallydescribed herein, and illustrated in the figures, can be arranged,substituted, combined, separated, and designed in a wide variety ofdifferent configurations.

With respect to any or all of the message flow diagrams, scenarios, andflow charts in the figures and as discussed herein, each step, block,and/or communication can represent a processing of information and/or atransmission of information in accordance with example embodiments.Alternative embodiments are included within the scope of these exampleembodiments. In these alternative embodiments, for example, operationsdescribed as steps, blocks, transmissions, communications, requests,responses, and/or messages can be executed out of order from that shownor discussed, including substantially concurrently or in reverse order,depending on the functionality involved. Further, more or fewer blocksand/or operations can be used with any of the message flow diagrams,scenarios, and flow charts discussed herein, and these message flowdiagrams, scenarios, and flow charts can be combined with one another,in part or in whole.

A step or block that represents a processing of information cancorrespond to circuitry that can be configured to perform the specificlogical functions of a herein-described method or technique.Alternatively or additionally, a step or block that represents aprocessing of information can correspond to a module, a segment, or aportion of program code (including related data). The program code caninclude one or more instructions executable by a processor forimplementing specific logical operations or actions in the method ortechnique. The program code and/or related data can be stored on anytype of computer readable medium such as a storage device including RAM,a disk drive, a solid state drive, or another storage medium.

The computer readable medium can also include non-transitory computerreadable media such as computer readable media that store data for shortperiods of time like register memory and processor cache. The computerreadable media can further include non-transitory computer readablemedia that store program code and/or data for longer periods of time.Thus, the computer readable media may include secondary or persistentlong term storage, like ROM, optical or magnetic disks, solid statedrives, compact-disc read only memory (CD-ROM), for example. Thecomputer readable media can also be any other volatile or non-volatilestorage systems. A computer readable medium can be considered a computerreadable storage medium, for example, or a tangible storage device.

Moreover, a step or block that represents one or more informationtransmissions can correspond to information transmissions betweensoftware and/or hardware modules in the same physical device. However,other information transmissions can be between software modules and/orhardware modules in different physical devices.

The particular arrangements shown in the figures should not be viewed aslimiting. It should be understood that other embodiments can includemore or less of each element shown in a given figure. Further, some ofthe illustrated elements can be combined or omitted. Yet further, anexample embodiment can include elements that are not illustrated in thefigures.

While various aspects and embodiments have been disclosed herein, otheraspects and embodiments will be apparent to those skilled in the art.The various aspects and embodiments disclosed herein are for purpose ofillustration and are not intended to be limiting, with the true scopebeing indicated by the following claims.

What is claimed is:
 1. A system comprising: a security enforcement pointdevice disposed within a managed network, wherein the securityenforcement point device applies security policies to protect computingdevices on the managed network from security threats; and a securitydecision point device disposed within a computational instance of aremote network management platform, wherein the computational instanceis dedicated to serving the managed network, and wherein the securitydecision point device is configured to: receive a message by way of themanaged network, wherein the message was obtained by a particularcomputing device of the computing devices, parse the message to identifyobservable indicators of one or more of the security threats, whereinthe observable indicators include at least one of a network addresses, ahyperlink, or a representation of an attached file, remotely query asecurity threat database for the observable indicators, receive, fromthe security threat database, an indication that the observableindicators are associated with a particular security threat, andtransmit, to the security enforcement point device, a command to updateits associated security policy such that the particular security threatis mitigated, wherein reception of the command causes the securityenforcement point device to change operation to be in accordance withthe updated security policy.
 2. The system of claim 1, wherein themessage is an email message containing the network address and thehyperlink, wherein the network address is contained within a header ofthe email message and is an Internet Protocol (IP) address from whichthe email message was sent, and wherein the hyperlink is a uniformresource locator (URL) contained within a body of the email message. 3.The system of claim 1, wherein the message is an email messagecontaining the network address and the hyperlink, wherein the networkaddress is contained within a header of the email message and is asource email address, and wherein the hyperlink is a uniform resourcelocator (URL) contained within a body of the email message.
 4. Thesystem of claim 1, wherein the representation of the attached file is ahash computed by applying a one-way function to the attached file. 5.The system of claim 1, wherein the representation of the attached fileis a name of the attached file.
 6. The system of claim 1, wherein thesecurity enforcement point device is an email server device thatreceives email messages on behalf of the managed network, and whereinthe updated security policy causes the email device to prevent deliveryof any of the received email messages that contain the network address,the hyperlink, or any file with characteristics that match therepresentation of the attached file.
 7. The system of claim 1, whereinthe security enforcement point device is an endpoint computing device onthe managed network that is executing anti-malware software, and whereinthe updated security policy causes the anti-malware software toidentify, when appearing in further email messages, the attached file asmalware and quarantine the attached file.
 8. The system of claim 1,wherein the security enforcement point device is a firewall device onthe managed network, and wherein the updated security policy causes thefirewall to block incoming network traffic from the network address thatcontains the hyperlink or any file with characteristics that match therepresentation of the attached file.
 9. The system of claim 1, whereinreceiving the message by way of the managed network comprises receivingthe message as a forwarded email from the particular computing device.10. The system of claim 1, wherein the security decision point device isfurther configured to: provide an alert that the particular securitythreat has been observed.
 11. The system of claim 1, wherein thesecurity decision point device is further configured to: store, in asecurity incident database disposed within the computational instance, arecord of the particular security threat as observed, including at leastone of the network addresses, the hyperlink, or the representation ofthe attached file.
 12. The system of claim 1, wherein the message is anemail message that contains the attached file, wherein the email messagewas received by an email server device associated with the managednetwork, and wherein the security decision point device is furtherconfigured to: query the email server device to determine a number oftimes that the attached file has been received by the email serverdevice, a number of email accounts to which the attached file wasdelivered, or the email accounts to which the attached file wasdelivered.
 13. The system of claim 1, wherein the security decisionpoint device is further configured to: receive a second message by wayof the managed network, wherein the second message is a second emailmessage; parse the second message to identify second observableindicators of one or more of the security threats, wherein the secondobservable indicators include at least one of a second networkaddresses, a second hyperlink, or a second representation of a secondattached file; remotely query the security threat database with thesecond observable indicators; receive, from the security threatdatabase, a second indication that the second observable indicators arenot associated with any of the security threats; and transmit, to anemail spam filter associated with the managed network, the secondmessage with an second indication that the second message is not spam,wherein reception of the second message and the second indication causesthe email spam filter to update its filtering rules.
 14. A methodcomprising: receiving, at a security decision point device disposedwithin a computational instance of a remote network management platform,a message by way of a managed network, wherein the message was obtainedby a particular computing device disposed within the managed network,and wherein the computational instance is dedicated to serving themanaged network; parsing, by the security decision point device, themessage to identify observable indicators of one or more of the securitythreats, wherein the observable indicators include at least one of anetwork addresses, a hyperlink, or a representation of an attached file;remotely querying, by the security decision point device, a securitythreat database for the observable indicators; receiving, by thesecurity decision point device and from the security threat database, anindication that the observable indicators are associated with aparticular security threat; and transmitting, by the security decisionpoint device and to a security enforcement point device disposed withinthe managed network, a command to update a security policy of thesecurity enforcement point device such that the particular securitythreat is mitigated, wherein reception of the command causes thesecurity enforcement point device to change operation to be inaccordance with the updated security policy.
 15. The method of claim 14,wherein the message is an email message containing the network addressand the hyperlink, wherein the network address is contained within aheader of the email message and is an Internet Protocol (IP) addressfrom which the email message was sent, and wherein the hyperlink is auniform resource locator (URL) contained within a body of the emailmessage.
 16. The method of claim 14, wherein the message is an emailmessage containing the network address and the hyperlink, wherein thenetwork address is contained within a header of the email message and isa source email address, and wherein the hyperlink is a uniform resourcelocator (URL) contained within a body of the email message.
 17. Themethod of claim 14, wherein the security enforcement point device is anemail server device that receives email messages on behalf of themanaged network, and wherein the updated security policy causes theemail server device to prevent delivery of any of the received emailmessages that contain the network address, the hyperlink, or any filewith characteristics that match the representation of the attached file.18. The method of claim 14, wherein the security enforcement pointdevice is an endpoint computing device on the managed network that isexecuting anti-malware software, and wherein the updated security policycauses the anti-malware software to identify, when appearing in furtheremail messages, the attached file as malware and quarantine the attachedfile.
 19. The method of claim 14, the method further comprising:receiving a second message by way of the managed network, wherein thesecond message is a second email message; parsing the second message toidentify second observable indicators of one or more of the securitythreats, wherein the second observable indicators include at least oneof a second network addresses, a second hyperlink, or a secondrepresentation of a second attached file; remotely querying the securitythreat database with the second observable indicators; receiving, fromthe security threat database, a second indication that the secondobservable indicators are not associated with any of the securitythreats; and transmitting, to an email spam filter associated with themanaged network, the second message with an second indication that thesecond message is not spam, wherein reception of the second message andthe second indication causes the email spam filter to update itsfiltering rules.
 20. An article of manufacture including anon-transitory computer-readable medium, having stored thereon programinstructions that, upon execution by a security decision point devicedisposed within a computational instance of a remote network managementplatform, cause the security decision point device to perform operationscomprising: receiving a message by way of a managed network, wherein themessage was obtained by a particular computing device disposed withinthe managed network, and wherein the computational instance is dedicatedto serving the managed network; parsing the message to identifyobservable indicators of one or more of the security threats, whereinthe observable indicators include at least one of a network addresses, ahyperlink, or a representation of an attached file; remotely querying asecurity threat database for the observable indicators; receiving, fromthe security threat database, an indication that the observableindicators are associated with a particular security threat; andtransmitting, to a security enforcement point device disposed within themanaged network, a command to update a security policy of the securityenforcement point device such that the particular security threat ismitigated, wherein reception of the command causes the securityenforcement point device to change operation to be in accordance withthe updated security policy.